More Weather

Little originates here, mostly we're pelted from the outside, a Canadian system, something from Alberta, occasionally the remnants from a hurricane in the Gulf. Local events are more limited, generally drainage. Once or twice I was at the exact altitude where rain was forming, I could catch it in my hand, just before it fell. Awareness is all. Right now the wind is blowing. It woke me up and I went outside, stood in the dark and rocked. No particular plans. Tuesday starts a two-week grind, but that's Tuesday, and this is only early Sunday. I need to do the laundry and plan some meals, be good to have clean socks and a casserole waiting to nuke. Supposed to be thunder-showers, chance of tornados, but I don't smell it on the wind, more a placid scent, something white and distant, peonies far away. It's a solid wind that keeps you just a little off vertical, if you were sailing you might fly a spinnaker. Not a bad metaphor for the way I feel. I like the wind in my face, tacking for any advantage. Sailing into the wind produced the steamship, the rest is history. I don't want to be glib, but as Glenn pointed out, sometimes it's commas and sometimes it's periods. Trapped in a word construct with no desire to be recused, rescued, fucking letters, man, they fuck me up, resuscitated, replenished, replicated. It takes hours to dig myself out of the hole I've dug myself into, days, weeks. Mostly what I do is dig. SAVE. Maybe the forecast was correct. I had to log off while a thunder cell moved through. Intense weather is exciting, there's the chance you might die. That sounds wrong but you know what I mean, when thunder shakes the house and lightning strikes a white oak 50 feet away from where you sit, you pay attention. The natural world is what matters, everything else is dross. Dental floss. I pulled a piece of hemp from the debris field yesterday, before I realized the show was over. That doesn't sound right either. I'm not making sense. I need to consider things more closely, beware when the specific becomes general. There was this guy at Janitor College. Heartsfelt, he was a basket case, from Wisconsin or Idaho, someplace cold, always wearing earmuffs. Never could hear what you said. You had to yell if he wanted a hot dog, MUSTARD?, and make various signs. The point of my digression, what I thought I meant, I've forgotten, something to do with weather, the wind, whether or not I was awake. It's a blur. I'm sure the driver was white, either wearing a hat or with really strange hair. Never trust an eye-witness. We're individually concerned, wrapped in our own lives, what do you see, really? I'm out back smoking, thinking about frying potatoes, there's a drive-by shooting, several people are killed, there's a lot of blood, I think about ketchup for the potatoes, realize I'm hardened to the yoke. Maybe that's not quite true. I only imagined there was a shooting, everything else is true What I felt. What I felt like. What I felt like after I thought about what had happened. Subjunctive. Consider the eddies, what you understand now that you didn't understand then. Nothing is different but your point of view. There's a Major Meaning hanging around here but I can't quite shake it loose, bear with me. It's really dark, unusually, I go outside to see what my writing light looks like from out there. It looks sad and lonely. I know that's not the case, grin, write you. I'm not me. I see it, but I can't explain it. Back to bed. Sleeping in installments. Then wind wakes me again. Not meant for sleep. Driving rain. Call my parents, both sounding old and worn out, but I get Mom laughing about some food related thing and we discuss butter beans. I confess to her that I now put chili peppers in my cornbread. She hisses. Cornbread, for Mom and Dad, is self-rising Dixie Lily cornmeal, an egg, and buttermilk; cast iron skillet heated very hot with a blob of bacon fat. A thinner, crusty pone, less cake-like than elsewhere in the country. I like it all ways, but mostly now, I make corn sticks, so easy to eat, the perfect shape, I like the surface to mass ratio. I remember what I got her laughing about, we were talking about meatloaf, which I was explaining to her was actually a forcemeat and therefore related to pate; and how I now made a separate small meat-loaves for however many guests because I was tired of fighting over who got the ends. I mix equal amounts of ground chuck and pork, pre-cook onions, peppers, celery, garlic, mix it all in with a bit of instant mashed potato powder (the binder from heaven, deus ex machina) shape it into 8 ounce loaves, glaze it with red enchilada sauce repeatedly, 30 minutes or so, between 350 and 400 degrees, I'm looking for a crust. Let them rest for 10 minutes as the cooking finishes under layers of slightly solid sauce. These are so good. I think I could do them on the grill, off the heat, on foil boats, might be even better slightly smoked. A very good dinner, skinned and boned chicken breasts on sale so I bought a pair, a brace, whatever, with no idea what I might do, ended up cubing it out, browning quickly after shaking in a bag of spices, everything else I'd cooked earlier, mixed it together, served it on a bed of rice, excellent, and there's a lot of it. Something I can eat for a few days. Everything eventually becomes Fried Rice. All the damaged trees demand attention from the previous ice-storm, everything is dying, look around you. I hate to be the bearer of bad knews. Sorry, news; what you might have expected. Why is this any different? Something. Salt, I think, the bacon. It tastes so good, it has to be bad. Like dark chocolate with a really good port. Certain things, it's the combination, the way they fit together. I know you knew that, I only mention it in passing, how I'd handle granny's coffin, count me in, whatever corner I carry, listen, I own a graveyard, I can bury people at will. It's blowing up a storm, I'd better go.